Journalist: Sydni Callaway (OSU)
Sen. Owen Knapp (OU) presented OU-005 to the Senate. OU-005 would guarantee that teachers receive a $4000 stipend if they teach at a “hard-to-staff school”. A hard-to-staff school is designated as a Title I school, located in a rural school district and has a teacher vacancy rate exceeding ten percent. Adding this stipend would help to confront the problem directly.
In his author’s explanation, Knapp says that the bill is “a targeted effort as to address one of the most pressing challenges facing our education system, teacher shortages and hard to staff schools across Oklahoma.” Not only is Oklahoma facing teacher shortages already, it is not necessarily staff shortage issues. “These are not just staffing issues, they’re student opportunity issues.”
Knapp also said that the stipend is to “certify teachers who choose to work in these tightening environments,” rather than it being a raise directly. “It is a targeted incentive designed to attract and retain teachers exactly where they;re needed most.”
Originally, the bill was tabled for some issues of the wordage in the funding section. Sen. Carrington Kline (NWOSU) shared how there were a lot of issues on how the wording of the funding section was. “There was no specifics about it. There was how much of a cap there was for the funding, but there wasn’t anything about what, how or who should be directing it,” said Kline. “It got tabled because of the fact that the codification of funding wasn’t in there.”
Amendment 3 of the bill, adds “providing for funding; after codification” as written. Once it was untabled after fixing the clerical mistakes, the bill did pass the Senate. Kline voted for the bill. However, Kline did share that she wished she voted differently. “It is not because I don’t agree with it, but more so I think that a lot of the direction when it comes to funds could be more specific.”
As Knapp’s bill passed the Senate, it waits to be heard in the House of Representatives.